Transforming Agriculture

Making the shift from low-income, subsistence farming to urbanized, modern, service-based economies requires well-constructed policies and investments for bolstering inclusive rural growth. IFPRI’s Country Strategy Support Programs build evidence and capacity for agricultural transformation at the country level.

The Egypt Strategy Support Program launched in 2016, and IFPRI opened a new office in Cairo. The program will support development policy and project design and strengthen the capacity of Egyptian institutions in the areas of impact evaluation and monitoring.

The Ghana Strategy Support Program brought together policy makers and development practitioners to offer actionable recommendations on critical issues for agricultural development in Ghana. Topics included agricultural intensification and Ghana’s changing agrifood industry.

The Ethiopia Strategy Support Program explored current trends in labor diversification. The growing youth population in Africa—the youth bulge—and the demand for employment are major concerns for rural economies. The study found that youth are more likely to work in nonfarm enterprises than are mature individuals. However, wage-labor opportunities remain scant in rural Ethiopia.

The Bangladesh Policy Research and Strategy Support Program for Food Security and Agricultural Development, now in its seventh year, completed the second round of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey, the first survey to collect nationally representative data to inform the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. The survey has emerged as a global public good, with over 20,000 downloads of the most recent dataset. IFPRI inaugurated an office in Dhaka in 2016 to continue more than 30 years of policy research in the country.